Reclaim your part of $8 BILLION every year! Low voltage Energy Harvesting

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:03]Welcome everyone. In this video, we're going to be looking at how you can make a system that runs on 1.2 volt or 1.5 vol batteries all the way down to probably around about 0.5 of a volt.

[00:00:25]And that is then fed into a Tesla pancake coil or a variation of Tesla's pancake coil. Uh and then on through some components which I'll go into capacitors and whatnot to be able to charge things. So we can use uh dead and dying batteries um you know that conventionally have run out of power according to normal electronic cutff and rather than throw this away um we're going to get uh we're going to use this circuit to reclaim some of that power before it's completely lost. And you know you can use this for for other things as well. You could use this uh to you know realistically use any low voltage power source uh like earth batteries.

[00:01:24]uh use a lemon battery if you want any kind of battery really um where you're taking a not very practical low voltage can't really do much with 1.5 volts um but then you're boosting it up to a point where it is usable uh so if that was just left running 24 hours a day say on an earth battery uh then you would be able to claim and uh store some power. So, this this little guy can charge anything from um 1.5 or 1.2 volts um all the way up to that big 12vt battery. So, um we'll have a look at all of that.

[00:02:17]Um, I've been absent for a little while and uh, unfortunately uh, my family lost a very very important member. Um, my stepfather passed away and he will be dely missed. Um, he was a beautiful man. He um always had time for everyone and you know suffered a lot over the years um and you know had had for the 20 years that I knew him uh had um at least 15 uh struggling with the big sea. So, um, uh, Dave has now gone, uh, to ride that eternal wave wherever that want wherever he wants that to be. Um, and so, you know, I I wish him well on that uh, everlasting wave.

[00:03:24]Um, so in honor of Dave, um, we're going to try and get the most out of life and and that's something um that he always tried to encourage. she, you know, never tried to get too down on um the bad hand that he'd been dealt and uh would always encourage everyone around him to get the most um you know, and work hard at that. And um you know I spoke to Dave about my personal health and uh he was always there to um to encourage you to keep up the fight.

[00:04:12]Uh so cheers to Dave.

[00:04:16]Now, there's multiple uses for this circuit and and initially um I used to have uh something similar to this connected up to uh an earth battery. It just would run all the time. um taking a very very small not very practical amount of electricity out of the ground uh placing it into capacitor and um charging up 12vt batteries. And I I would have um quite a few of these actually um you know stacked and um there's got to be certain distances. You keep them away from each other so they're not negatively influencing each other. But um you would generally think yeah 1.5 volts is not not really going to do that much and can't really charge um very quickly.

[00:05:16]Um and that's that's rightfully so.

[00:05:19]Sorry about the camera shake. Um but it's more about having this constant uh you know mindset of trying to use as little as possible. And so if you can use a system that uses you know maybe a tenth of the power uh to run say just you know conventional lighting um then you know that's probably the way we should go. you know, I'm tired of this old attitude of well, I can afford it, so therefore I will. Um, you know, and maybe if we just focused on the smaller details of some of these circuits, we we could get all of our electronics to that higher level. So, enough crap. Enough waffling on, mate.

[00:06:18]Um, so generally what I would do is I'd run I'll just I'll take these other batteries out. We'll just leave one battery in play here. I will disconnect the capacitor and we have probably should have started with all these other batteries out. Um now what I use this for is is many as I said many different applications.

[00:06:49]Um one would be to deplete the remaining power in aoublea battery. The the AA battery industry is like around about a 7 to8 billion a year industry. It's huge. Um, and it's not really thought of. No, everybody just kicks on about their day. We see them just about every day. And you know, every now and then we buy a, you know, crazy cheap uh packet of of these little energy cells and and we put them in our little devices and run them until the device is no longer happy. And then uh we remove them and put in a new one. And um you know it always used to occur to me that it's like well I know there's still energy left inside that battery cell. And um I think the last time I checked I think it's like around about 12 13% on average. I mean brand to brand is going to be very different but on average 12 13% of the power that's unusable for because we have in a battery most electronic circuits will cut off power below one volt or.9 of a volt uh in an attempt to protect or you um keep a constant supply of electricity and so rather then have uh a nonreliable or less reliable supply. Most circuits cut them off at 1 volt. So there's on average around 12 13% of the power that was initially placed inside that cell.

[00:08:44]13% is still there and we're throwing this away. And so you know you don't you don't have to do too much thinking if I'm sure you're not you know it's not physical capable of sorry we're not physically capable of collecting that 13% back um you know that's the entire industry. So, but of your uh of your power, the the amount of batteries that you buy, um you can reclaim at least, you know, five 6% of that. And and if we were all to do that and you know, so 13% is being thrown away every year.

[00:09:31]um it's like 2 to 3 gatt hours of power is literally thrown away in the bin. And so if more circuits were um built or designed around collecting stray or unusable power um you know even if it was stored in a capacitor until which time it could be dumped into the circuit. Um, you know, most people would be under the assumption that there's just not a lot of power in um in these uh double A's anyway, and you can't really do anything. And you most certainly wouldn't normally think that you would be able to charge uh say a a 12vt battery with one. Um but you know it it might take you uh 200 years to charge it. Uh it's it's in the order. I did I do remember looking it up at one point just on energy alone and let's just not talk about the fact that there's no perfect circuit. It's not going to put across 100% of that energy. Um, so it's a very very small but albeit provable um amount of energy. I I take I've taken this battery for example. Um I don't know how many days cuz it's a ridiculous amount. But I just, you know, want to to do it and I really thought to myself, well, if you're going to put up a video uh on how to do this, then you really need to actually do it. uh go the full course and charge the whole battery from you know start to finish. Um so that's what I have been doing slightly with this one. Uh it's a bit annoying cuz I want to use the battery for other things but uh I've proven my point. So um I will show you basically from just the one um double A battery there running into the pancake coil. And we've got that nice and bright one watt wireless LED.

[00:12:01]All right. And so that'll work in various configurations laid around that coil. Uh and I will try and place schematics at the end um of this coil arrangement.

[00:12:20]Now, I leave that one watt light there as an indicator.

[00:12:26]Um, when that light goes out, then I know that h I need to change that battery over. Um, and I'm doing it this way so I can get, you know, a rough idea of how many battery swaps I'm doing and doing multiple batteries.

[00:12:46]uh just so it doesn't take as long doing multiple batteries at once. But you can see there that from that's a 3.2 vol LED um being operated off of 1.2 vols.

[00:13:03]So that that's fancy in itself, but the fact that it's also a one watt light and it'll go if you just want to use it as a light, it'll go for a really really long time on that. You know, um, a lot of people when they first hear of these jewel thief arrangements, they think to themselves, "Oh, okay, you've boosted it up and therefore it will burn out really, really quickly." And fortunately, that's not the case with these things. They just go for so long.

[00:13:32]It's incredible, you know, of a dead battery. Um, I mean, these ones are are rechargeable batteries, but say you were using dead batteries. Um, you know, I mean, you could even reclaim more than what you spend on batteries if you think about you could get other people's dead batteries. I mean, that would be a weird way to beg. But, um, at one point there, I had a deal with the local hospital where I'd pull up and and get all their dead batteries. And this is before the days of lithium rechargeables, so it's probably not an issue anymore. But, uh, back in the day where they were sealed lead acid, they had to be changed regularly for a new one, um, even though they were rechargeable, they still had to be changed and they had compliance stickers on them and, uh, so I would, you know, make a donation to the hospital and, uh, get a whole rack of batteries and and, um, I would drain all the power that was left in them. you know, some of them were okay and were you reused, but uh for the large part um I was just taking the energy that someone else had paid to put in there um and then I would you know then use that to charge up um you know all different types of rechargeable batteries. So it's just reclaiming some of that power.

[00:15:08]Um, so even if you were to say to everyone that you knew, don't throw away your batteries. Just keep them in a box.

[00:15:16]I'll come around and get them. And then you chuck them in your little jewel thief like device and uh off it goes. It starts transferring that to another reusable medium. So, so out of that um out of that coil, there's a second coil under there. And like I said, I'll put the schematics up there. So, we got the one the coil on top is the driving coil. It's wired as a dual thief. The coil underneath is an identical coil, but wired as just an induction receiving coil. And uh so it has a full wave bridge uh full wave bridge rectifier there.

[00:16:05]And we have a cap and probably the writing for that cap is probably on the other side knowing my luck. Yep, it's on the other side. Uh is there another one here? No, there's not.

[00:16:25]Anyway, uh I will place those details on the schematics, but basically this uh cap here is AC cap and it's just um filtering out some of the noise. Uh some of the electrical pulses are a little too quick for even the diodes. And I find having that cap on there helps smooth things out a bit. Um, when you place on the uh positive to the full wave bridge, the light goes almost out.

[00:17:14]Um, it's got a tiny little bit in there, but that's, as I said, just used as an indicator light. Uh when that goes completely out, I know that it's time to change those batteries. So that then comes out via the green and yellow cables. And they go across to this cap here, which was seen in some of my other videos.

[00:17:42]Um please check them out if you haven't uh already done so. There, you know, this might not be your thing. you might like some of the other stuff that I've done. Um, again, a lot of it's just uh revising someone else's work or you know, okay, so my experimentations based on someone else's work. Um, so this cap is a 1,400 volt DC cap, 20 UF.

[00:18:17]Um, it g it's actually a welding cap. It gives some nice decent bangs to it. Um, so if you're into making things go bang, check it out on my channel. I've got that cap featured in a few things. Um, and then from that cap, I've got uh the positive lead here going to set capacitors, which is two of the 2.6 7 vol super caps. They're um 2.7 vol 500F.

[00:18:55]So, they're huge, those caps. I put two of them there in parallel.

[00:19:01]And then I've also wired up one of Tesla's um uh receiving coils there. And that works with my battery char uh sorry not my battery charger my offgrid portable electric circuit.

[00:19:20]Um and you know I I can wirelessly charge that one in in this case. What I'm doing here is um charging it up.

[00:19:35]Put that back on there.

[00:19:38]Charging it up. um manually, not wirelessly, the wired is probably the correct way to say that. So, there's that's the same thing here. Just um just a single cap. And I find this circuit really handy just to charge these things up. They only take about maybe half an hour to charge up.

[00:20:02]Maybe that one takes a bit longer. Maybe like 45 minutes, an hour um to fully charge.

[00:20:10]Um, yeah. And and that's because that's two of them, so it's just double the capacity. Well, yeah, capacitors are different to batteries when you parallel series connect them. But they make great little torches. So, about half an hour for this little guy. Uh, and that'll last at least 12 hours of a nice usable light.

[00:20:35]You probably should put some your safer terminals on there. If you short that out, they'll they're um they're decent caps. They'll they'll burn through some wires. So So that you can charge those up. Um and here's another one.

[00:20:55]Charge up a green one that also has the wireless charging function. I didn't find it too effective to charge them wirelessly using this circuit. Uh that wireless function on these things is more for my circuit. You check that out on my channel tutorials there and I'll be making some soon. Um hopefully I really want to try and put in a little bit more effort towards my subscribers.

[00:21:24]cuz I understand it takes a lot of effort to watch some of this stuff and you know someone especially when someone like me waffles on, forgets my point half the time and uh ends up making a video three times longer than it needs to be. But please um if you guys can stick with me, help me out and get this out to others because my main concern is that I'm not going to discover this stuff or get it out in time. And um uh you know and you know maybe you guys can help um you know even if it's if it's in um collaboration just through the comment section and talking to each other and I know some of you have already copied um my work and and I want you to do that. I encourage you to do that. Some of you mentioned odd that you don't want to um seem like you're cheating or or stealing or taking my work, and that's not the way I see it. I I see my work as just someone else's work. And I've been fortunate enough to have the time to have a look at it and actually have a go and experiment. And so some things I found don't make sense to me and I'm struggling to understand them. But um hopefully by putting them on the internet um and all my subscribers and my viewer base um together we can try and work some of these things out. And uh before you know they're hidden from us again. I notice a lot of a lot of scientists going you know missing or um you being unalived and um you know I just wonder if this has happened you know how many times has this happened in history. So if we just get these this information out again like some of you be going what the hell are you talking about mate these double A batteries. Yeah, it's more about teaching the philosophy of it, the understanding that there are other ways to do things and that this can be scaled, right? So again, more waffle. So if I am to take this, I just make you understand how much power uh there can be obtained from the old AA battery.

[00:23:50]Um, and so that that recharge rate is pretty damn impressive. Let me shade it so we can get a better light display.

[00:24:05]Yeah. So, you can get a decent amount of power out of a double A. again. Like that's that's all it is. It's just one 1.2 vola.

[00:24:27]Here, look, I'll spin that battery cuz I think the Yeah, the specs are right there.

[00:24:36]Aa 1.2 vol 2300 m ah And with the right coil, that'll give you something like that.

[00:25:05]Yeah. So, it's got plenty of juice.

[00:25:11]And now you think to yourself, well, technically I can charge any battery that is, you know, say 5 to 10 volts below whatever this cap can reach.

[00:25:27]Um, I think last time I checked with this arrangement, it was about 80 volts that this will go up to. So, let's turn on this meter here.

[00:25:42]Well, actually before before I show you those, I was actually charging uh the double A battery. So, you know, even if you just wanted it for really small stuff, you just want to use And I've got uh those little neodymium magnets stuck to the bottom of the battery.

[00:26:08]Uh, it just makes it easier to put these alligator clips on. But you could do a proper job like set up your coil and um have it all um you know in in these these little bays. Maybe have like three bays on the input side and three on the output side. And you can use dead batteries or dying batteries to charge up your double A's. And when it's under load, like the light goes out, take the battery off and the light comes back on. So you can charge up your AA batteries or your AAA batteries or anything in between. So let's go.

[00:27:00]What are we at now? This one I started um charging at 11 volts.

[00:27:08]So, I took and it's been forever. And I I was counting and then I thought to myself, no, you don't need to do that. It's ridiculous.

[00:27:21]And so, I stopped and then I really regretted stopping. So, but just when you calculate it out, you should be looking at around about maybe about 300's to charge up a 12vt um battery like that. Um it has been off off charge for at least a few hours now.

[00:27:49]So, I mean that charge is real.

[00:27:52]Um, but like I said, this is not practical. Doing this isn't very practical unless um, you know, doing it from double A's is definitely not practical unless you had like a whole bank there that you just keep chucking in more and more um, free batteries as you get them. Um, so what are we at? 317. I mean, you're not you're probably not going to see anything here.

[00:28:20]Uh because as I said, it is so slow.

[00:28:28]But the point of the matter is it is possible.

[00:28:34]So it might be so slow doing it with one coil.

[00:28:40]Um, but what if you had say 10 of those?

[00:28:45]I logic suggests 10 times faster. So 10 of those earth battery.

[00:28:54]Um, you know, occasionally maybe have a have a bus bar where you could have these uh where you could literally just drop in uh so that they're it's arranged so that they automatically the terminals automatically connect and you could supercharge those being that they're capa capacitors they'll charge up instantly. So, say you had a decent enough um you know like say you had a decent enough capacitor uh already charged connected to a bus bar already charged off of this thing connected to a bus bar and then you just drop these guys in and then off you go off to the races.

[00:29:44]So, yeah, it's something to think about.

[00:29:46]Like I said, this can be done at a bigger scale, but for me, this was more about just trying to get the most out of things before I throw them away. So, I got a box full of batteries there that I'll just throw into um into the the complete unit. I've got a unit there that's uh designed specifically for this and I can take it out and charge up whatever I want. 9 volt batteries or anything. All right, guys. Thanks for watching. Have we seen an increase yet?

[00:30:24]No, it does work. You're just going to have to trust me or build your own. And then leave a comment. Please like and share and subscribe.

[00:30:37]It's not really that important to me that you do those things other than the fact it shows my stuff to other people. So you might you might be the person that connects someone to something that's important to them. So thanks for watching.

[00:31:00]Please like, share, and subscribe.

[00:31:04]Have a nice day.